PARK RIDGE, N.J., May 11, 2007 – Sony’s latest Linear Tape-Open tape cartridge, the LTO Ultrium4 data cartridge, has been approved and qualified by the LTO Technology Provider Companies, a consortium of technology companies that includes Hewlett Packard, IBM and Quantum.

Currently available, the fourth-generation cartridge is designed to support the increasing storage capacity requirements of professional users, with higher data transfer rates and greater reliability for businesses that have critical data storage and archival needs.

The new LTO Ultrium4 cartridge doubles the storage capacity of the LTO Ultrium3 tape format, to 800GB (native) and 1.6TB (compressed), with data transfer rates of 120 Mbps (native) and 240 Mbps per second (compressed).

“Users do not need to compromise performance in order to achieve higher capacity,” said Tom Murai, Sony Electronics’ director of marketing for storage media products. “With increasing demand for high-performance server and mainframes, data cartridges with higher recording capacity are required as data backup solutions.”

The LTO-4 cartridge achieves its higher storage capacity by increasing the number of recording tracks (896, compared to the previous model’s 704 tracks) and by using a thinner and longer length tape.

The cartridge is manufactured with newly developed fine magnetic particles and a high thermal stability binder. In order to maximize performance, Murai said, an improved dispersing technology for these particles was introduced.

The LTO-4 cartridge also incorporates a new developed thin-layer coating technology and a smooth surface coating process. Murai said this allows the cartridge to have a low error rate and stable output under various operating conditions.

According to Murai, the LTO-4 cartridge’s stable magnetic servo signal writing technology and newly developed, high-rigid and high-accuracy cartridge molding technology offer the high reliability required by data backup systems by achieving stable write/read characteristics.

Sony plans to introduce the write-once LTO Ultrium4 WORM (write-once, read-many) data cartridge, designed to help prevent data erasure and alteration, this summer.

LTO Ultrium is a trademark of H-P, IBM and Quantum.